President Barack Obama is squaring off against a familiar foe in the latest sequel of the health care fight — and it’s not the GOP.

The president included language in the health care bill he unveiled Monday that would give the federal government sweeping new authority to guard against aggressive rate hikes by health insurance companies.

This is the latest salvo in a yearlong volley between the insurance industry and Democrats at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Every time public opinion flags, Obama and his congressional allies train their sights on those well-recognized villains at the big insurance companies.

“The status quo is good for the insurance industry and bad for America,” Obama declared over the weekend in his weekly radio address. “Over the past year, as families and small-business owners have struggled to pay soaring health care costs, and as millions of Americans lost their coverage, the five largest insurers made record profits of over $12 billion.”

Anthem Blue Cross, the largest insurer in California, sparked this latest crusade by raising its rates on individual customers in the Golden State by as much as 39 percent.

The move provoked an outcry from Democrats anxious to regain momentum in the health care fight.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius seized on the rate hike to release a report last week highlighting other significant premium increases. And Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California announced plans to introduce legislation this week creating a federal regulator to guard against skyrocketing premiums.

Feinstein’s proposal served as a model for inclusion in the White House health care bill unveiled Monday. Nancy-Ann DeParle, head of the White House Office of Health Reform, told reporters Monday morning that the provision was added to prevent “unreasonable rate increases.”

WellPoint, the parent company of Anthem Blue Cross, attributes the increase to a combination of factors.

According to WellPoint, the costs of products and services, from prescription drugs to X-rays, have risen an average 10 percent. The company said it also did not increase rates enough last year to keep up with rising health care costs. In addition, Anthem Blue Cross says its subscribers are a little older and less healthy after the battered economy forced younger people to drop coverage.

“More healthy people are dropping coverage,” said Brian Sassi, president and CEO of WellPoint’s consumer business. “We believe it is a factor of the tightening economy. People are making a trade-off.”

As a result, the company raised its premiums an average of 25 percent for more than 800,000 customers in California’s individual insurance market. The cost of some plans increased 39 percent, earning nationwide headlines that fueled outrage among reform advocates. Sebelius and congressional Democrats jumped on the news as a reason to jump-start the flagging health care debate.

“The other week, men and women across California opened up their mailboxes to find a letter from Anthem Blue Cross,” Obama said in his weekly radio address. “The news inside was jaw-dropping.”

Anthem Blue Cross agreed to delay the increases until May and even hired an outside auditor to help justify the rate hikes. The company is also working with state regulators in California. But executives downplay the outcry, focusing instead on the reasons for the drastic jump in premiums.

“We’re the largest carrier in terms of California,” Sassi said. “It goes along with being who we are.”

Bradley Fluegel, WellPoint’s executive vice president of external affairs, said, “There’s a lot of misunderstanding about what drives premium increases.”

For-profit health insurers, such as WellPoint, are struggling to keep the government at bay as they try to balance rising health care costs with affordable coverage and decent profits.

WellPoint, like many of its competitors, is a publicly traded company that has a legal obligation to maximize profits for its shareholders. The company’s profits last year were slightly less than 4 percent of its total revenue, executives said last week. Its share price was up in mid-day trading Monday, hovering just shy of $60.

The president’s proposal mirrors one outlined last week by Feinstein. The California Democrat’s plan requires insurance companies to justify significant rate hikes and gives the secretary of Health and Human Services authority to deny any unjustifiable premium increases. The proposal also establishes a review board of outside health care experts to advise the secretary and sets aside money for states that lack the funds to effectively regulate insurers.

Feinstein was upset enough about the news that she agreed to back a procedural tactic that would require only a simple 51-vote majority to approve the bill in the Senate.

Other Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of the California delegation, are highlighting these increases as a reason to pass health care reform, reviving an issue that has been on life support since Republican Scott Brown shocked Democrats by winning a Senate seat in Massachusetts.

Aides say party leaders will maintain this drumbeat all week in the run-up to a highly anticipated health care summit on Thursday at Blair House including Obama and congressional leaders.

“As bad as things are today, they’ll only get worse if we fail to act,” Obama said this past weekend. “We’ll see more and more Americans go without the coverage they need. We’ll see exploding premiums and out-of-pocket costs burn through more and more family budgets. We’ll see more and more small businesses scale back benefits, drop coverage or close down because they can’t keep up with rising rates.”